Open Source software doesn’t care about freedom. They don’t want to talk about ethics, etc., because that scares people away. They emphasize high quality (because everyone can contribute) and low price. However, it is not always entirely free.

Free Software can work because it is concerned with ethics. Open Source cannot because it is concerned with price.

Support Free Software. Use a 100% free distribution of GNU/Linux. Support the FSF.

-who

http://whoslonelyrants.blogspot.com/

Are they correct that scarcity is the basis of property rights? See http://hallingblog.com/2009/06/22/scarcity-%e2%80%93-does-it-prove-intellectual-property-is-unjustified/

Is the conception of ideas and inventions subject to scarcity? See http://hallingblog.com/2009/06/25/scarcity-and-intellectual-property-empirical-evidence-for-inventions/

Is the distribution of ideas and invention (technology diffusion) subject to scarcity? See http://hallingblog.com/2009/06/25/scarcity-and-intellectual-property-empirical-evidence-of-adoptiondistribution-of-technology/

Thanks for posting your thoughts. Can you expand a bit on your last paragraph, particularly: “If tomorrow one of these providers shuts down, we could be in for trouble.” I think I know what you are saying, but if you could elaborate that would be great.

I would not disagree that open source reduces development costs, and it is impossible to argue that at least some open source software is better than proprietary solutions. I am not anti-open source. I do think it is a bit naive for those in the open source community not to seek patents that would protect themselves if sued by proprietary software companies.

-Gene

You might wish to think out your arguments before you post. Software and the legal industry is an incredibly bad analogy. While the statutes and cases are for the most part laid open, not everyone is allowed to practice law – and for good reason. The two industries do not share a bedrock concept, so the analogy is not tenable. Pursing your analogy would beg the question: Do you want every programmer licensed by the government as practicing lawyers are?

But now I re thinking this strategy as the open source model has reduced my development costs by 60%.
I am using an open source CMS, open source libraries for development, open source social and video platforms for functionality and delivery. MySQL for DB and some costs associated with storage on cloud and managed hosting.

So overall, If I were to develop my future project I would recommend open source from a cost point of view. If tomorrow one of these providers shuts down, we could be in for trouble. I am not sure how to best mitigate that risk. suggestions are most welcome.

Thanks

I understand what you are saying. The “zero” part about the race is admittedly exaggerated, at least for the most part. I do see more and more folks writing software and giving it away for free and then asking for donations, so there is certainly downward pressure that is going to bring the free rider out in all of us.

-Gene

I do agree with most of your comments about patents.

I completely agree with you that there is a race to ‘lower prices’, I think this is a good thing. I just disagree that there is a ‘zero’ to get to. I think there is no zero, therefore I don’t believe there is a race to it. In fact many of our commercial competitors claim that open source is actually more expensive than the existing proprietary solutions once you have factored in the cost of services and risk management.

I think the other point that is missing here: who are these open source developers that are messing with the economy? Outside of a few students cutting their teeth in the real world, almost all of them are either fully-paid committers or are the IT developers or software engineers who use the software. All that happens is that the software jobs move out of inefficient silo’ed ISPs into the mainstream IT market.

One of the things that open source is doing is removing the horrible waste in the software industry. I have worked for many software companies and spent a lot of time re-writing the same software again and again for a different boss. None of this software is value-add or core-competency it is just utility code that is required. The cost of this silly exercise is the burden of the customers, to the detriment of the rest of the economy. Your position is that it is in our long-term best interest for the software industry to redundantly create the same stuff. I contend that the software industry needs to evolve to a model where their customers are paying for real value and not for wasted effort.

I also contend that open source saves jobs at the macro-economic level, but I’ll leave that for another time.

James

It is difficult for me to understand how you could write that there is no race to zero going on, unless it is just to disagree with me. I looked over your blog, and it seems that you have been writing that the economic downturn is an opportunity for open source solutions because of the cost benefits compared with proprietary technologies. Therefore, it seems we agree. Odd that you would take a position here in the comments on my blog when your own writings suggest that we are in agreement.

-Gene

I am sure that is what you believe when those with patents go after those without patents. Is the anti-patent crowd so ignorant that they think that patents are about locking up technology? That is comical really. You see, very few patent infringement lawsuits are filed in the computer industry, and that is for a reason. Everyone has rights, and if I sue you then you are going to sue me. So the only time a lawsuit happens is to create leverage for a deal. Unless the party who is infringing doesn’t have any patents, then those with patents sue because they have no reason to fear a counter-attack.

Believe it is all about my checkbook if you like. The truth is I don’t do any work for big tech companies, and if you read my writing you would know that. Big tech companies don’t like hiring those who constantly bitch about their motives, but you wouldn’t know that because you want to read one article and think you know everything about me.

The truth is I work with individuals, start-ups and small businesses. They seek patents to get funding, and to insulate themselves from being sued. Patents are cheap litigation insurance, attract investors and let you build. If you do wind up infringing on someone, which as everyone here thinks is inevitable, then you have a right to trade. If you don’t have a right to trade and someone wants to ruin you then that is a you problem, not a them problem. Simply stated, those who operate in the software industry and do not apply for patents are naive, reckless and are opening themselves up to be taken down.

-Gene

So you think what I wrote means I am like the Uni-bomber and despise technology and advances and want everyone driving a horse and buggy? Really? Twist, twist, twist to suit your point of view if you must.

I realize that the “free” in open source is about “freedom,” but thanks for point out the obvious. It is interesting, however, that you ignore that the “freedom” comes at a cost. If you develop and I get to copy then I don’t need to spend the time and money developing, so I can charge less. If you want to ignore that this creates a race to zero go right ahead. It is interesting that the only folks who question the race to zero are those who are programmers in the open source community. No economists are challenging what I wrote, and neither are any who understand business. The freedom of open source is pushing the price the market will bear lower and lower. If you think that is a good thing then by all means go right ahead. There is little doubt that much open source software works better than proprietary software. For me, I just want software that works better, even if I have to pay for it. I just don’t see copying the work of others, tweaking it and then asking for a donation as being a long term industry business model.

Whether you like it or not open source is forcing prices down and eventually a lot of talented programmers will have to do other things because you cannot compete with free, whether that means cheap or freedom to take.

-Gene

Folks, this guy only cares about billable hours. His checkbook. That is it. It’s these bottom feeders that have ruined choice in the market. They think since the tools are free, how can we make a buck if we can’t lock up the tools and lease them to the hoopleheads dumb enough to pay us for it.

He thinks that the tools should be expensive, and in open source we are saying NO. They should be free, so that more buildings are built, not fewer. You make money with Open Source by servicing your CLIENT. Something no attorney wants to hear because if they did, their billable hours would drop.

Ignore this guy, he is an insider with a monetary interest in keeping software locked up.

There is no race to zero because there is no zero to get to. Pretending that open source is zero cost and then claiming to either debunk it or assert that it is bad for the industry is pointless. You are arguing against a fictitious scenario. Total waste of time, sorry.

I think the bigger question is, even if open source is bad for the software industry, is that bad for the economy as a whole? The invention of the internal combustion engine was bad for the horseshoe manufacturers, but good for everyone else (except the Amish). You want us all to be driving a sweet horse/buggy combo?

James

I’m reminded of the existential French painting, “This is not a pipe”, each time you debate with the IT guys about what “software” is or is not.

For those that haven’t seen it, the painting shows a smoking pipe with a sign underneath saying “This is not a pipe”
http://www.artinthepicture.com/paintings/Rene_Magritte/This-Is-Not-A-Pipe/

And of course, the statement is true because it is merely a painting that represents a smoking pipe but it is not the thing it represents. (And more so, on the internet, the digitized image of the painting is not the painting itself. Are we getting too existentially deep here?)

One can easily imagine a piece of paper having typed on it, the text string:
Type(“Hello world. This is not machine executable code.”);

This statement would also be true because the ink on the paper is not appropriately structured as rapidly fetchable and machine executable code signals embedded inside of high speed machine storage.

It is true however that OCR could be used to read the ink on the paper and produce as a result (after compilation of the high level source code) corresponding signals in high speed machine storage that are machine executable code. But in that case, the signals inside the machine are not the ink on the paper and vise versa.

Whew. The mind boggles with all these deep existential thoughts.

I guess we will be debating forever whether source code symbols on paper are math or just scratches of ink which our minds trick us into believing as being something else (une pipe).

One of the earlier posters had it dead right regarding his comment on Wachtell. Firms providing services are only able to charge what the market will bear. It wasn’t that long ago that insolvencies were at historically record lows and banking and finance and m&a partners were able to charge whatever the market could bear. Now it’s the insolvency and restructuring experts’ time in the sun and the premiere practitioners are reportedly charging up to US$1,100 per hour – more than the b&f/m&a lawyers. Oh noes the sky Is falling!

What this is telling you is that the market is working properly. If there ever comes a time why nobody in the market is willing to spend more than $150 per patent, that’s simply the market telling you that patent prosecution is not worth more than $150 to them and/or there are too many patent attorneys. Just like there are way too many property/b&f/m&a lawyers right now.

I can assure you that firms are still happy to pay fair prices to for VARs and in house programmers to develop applications or value added services and open source is actually good for these people.

By the way switching costs of software is arguably no higher than switching a legal services provider but people still look to Wachtell, Cravath and the like rather than Joe Smith, Esq from down the road. Why is that?

People are making money off of these companies and don’t do a darn thing, those people should get a real job making a product everyone can use, such as food. If we had the work force working on these convoluted products that don’t do much of anything but confuse, we could solve world hunger.